U.S. Broadband Is Racist

At the tail end of 2023 I wrote a feature for The Verge exploring how the U.S. government, for the first time ever, had openly acknowledged that U.S. broadband had a rich history of race and class discrimination.Data had shown for decades how giant regional phone and cable monopolies had not only refused to upgrade poor and minority communities to better broadband (despite untold billions in taxpayer subsidies), reporters found they actually charged poor minority people higher prices for shittier service. Why? One, because broadband deployment discrimination mirrors structural discrimination in other sectors (like electrical power). And because a generation of unchecked corruption and corporate consolidation had hollowed out U.S. regulators like a cheap Dollar Store fake chocolate Easter bunny. Things changed a little with two bits of 2021 legislation born out of pandemic lockdowns (and the white hot public rage at shitty broadband). One was the American Rescue Plan Act, which set…